


Xenocultural Sensitivity in Alien Seasonal Observances

by ayyyy (RosaAquafire)



Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, So dumb, dumb fluff, warning: it cuts off before shit gets truly saucy which I'm telling you to save you from blueballs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-28
Updated: 2016-04-28
Packaged: 2018-06-05 03:11:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6686803
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RosaAquafire/pseuds/ayyyy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Karkat is an alien lacking in human social constructs, so he probably doesn't want to celebrate Valentines Day. Dave is a too cool for school and definitely thinks this is all lame, so he probably doesn't want to celebrate Valentines Day. Luckily, Rose and Kanaya are here to straighten these idiots up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Xenocultural Sensitivity in Alien Seasonal Observances

**Author's Note:**

> This is a birthday present for the best person in the world! Also the first REAL FANFIC I've written in actual years so I hope you all like my contribution to the beauty that is DaveKat fandom.

"So," says Dave.

 

  
  
  
  
"So," says Karkat.  
  


  
  
Kanaya holds up one perfectly manicured claw. Dave shifts from his heels to the balls of his feet, and he grows increasingly fucking antsy while he watches her adjust her needle, and then go over her stitches, and then study them carefully, and then adjust her needle again, and then the fucking sewing machine starts humming _again_ as she does _something_ with it and he throws up his hands. "Oh, come the actual fuck _on_ , you're doing this on purpose!"  
  
She locks the machine and smiles and turns and folds her hands in her lap very elegantly. "How can I help you, Dave?" she asks.  
  
"Yeah, I bet," he says. And she waits patiently, smiling in her encouraging, good-listener sort of way, and he shoves his hands into his pockets and fuck it. "Right, cool, so like, shocking absolutely fuckin' nobody I'm here about Karkat. There, conversation started, let's go."  
  
  
  
  
  
Rose's stupid eyebrows have got to be the most bulge-chafingly infuriating thing in all of Paradox Space. "No, no fucking way. Right off the fucking ballslammer --" Somehow, her eyebrows went _higher_ , how was that fucking _possible_ , "-- you put those suggestive impudent plushbugs down and stop looking at me like that."  
  
"My," Rose says, and very deliberately slides them down her forehead back where they belong, thank _god_ , "you're even more delightful than usual."  
  
"And keep your weird pink human lips zipped if all you're going to do is have a big old hah-hah Karkat at my expense here," he commands. He doesn't actually expect her to obey any commands, but it feels really nice to give them anyway. "I can do this just as well without your, let me make this clear, very dubious help!"  
  
"Of course." Somehow she seems even more condescending when she's obstensibly being nice. He doesn't mind her attitude as much as he minds his reaction. His _pre_ action. He very fucking existence, right now, actually.  
  
"I've been making an effort to follow your human calendar," he says. He's blushing and he hates that. He's spent his entire life trying to _not_ do things like blush, or bruise, or cry, or open his mouth too wide. He knows that Rose can't appreciate it and probably thinks he's just being bashful or some such and he hates that, too. "For sociological reasons, mostly."  
  
"Okay," Rose says, because he paused to let her acknowledge his cultural outreach, and he growls and hunches his shoulders.  
  
"Okay," he echoes. Tongue-tied. Hurgh. "Okay," he repeats, "and you already know what I'm going to say because there isn't any way that you're not still following your own fucking race's alien calendar so let's just spare us all this agonizing endless hellscape before I kill myself and then you and let's just acknowledge that it's human Valentines Day, okay?"  
  
Her violet eyes glint. And she smooths a smile off her lips. "Okay," she agrees. "Consider it acknowledged."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"Hm," Kanaya purses her lips. Dave isn't sure how she manages that with the fangs, but hey, trolls are talented at all sorts of weird human mannerisms that doesn't actually make any sense to him so sure, whatever. "That's a human holiday, Dave."  
  
"Wow," he says. "No shit. See, this is why I brought this to you, Kanaya, so you can dole out all these sick insights that I couldn't have worked through on my own."  
  
"There's no need for human sarcasm," she rebukes in a tone that's _really suspiciously_ close to being human sarcastic. "I'm just saying that I don't think it has the same meaning to him that it has to you."  
  
"It has pretty much exactly zero meaning to me, actually," Dave insists, feeling impatient and awkward and pretty sure that Karkat is going to come through the door at any second. "Psychotic puppet ninja brothers aren't really big on the whole bears and chocolates and affection and flowers day." He'd only learned the day existed because of TV. Movies. John complaining about his dad leaving him happy little clowns holding hearts with #1 SON written on him accompanied by proud fatherly notes. Not that he'd been jealous, because that had sounded fucking lame, and of course he'd been jealous, because that had sounded fucking amazing. He breathes out a stream of air. "I'm not asking if he's _expecting_ anything, obviously, because that would be stupid. I'm asking if he'd _like_ something."  
  
Kanaya smiles fondly. Dave kind of wants to smile fondly, too, because watching her think about Karkat makes _him_ think about Karkat. But he's still not feeling up to really driving the full dope-mobile out in front of his troll vampire... whatever she was to him, just yet. He's pretty good at the stoic thing. He keeps the smile under wraps. "It's Karkat, Dave," Kanaya says.  
  
Right. All that needed to be said, actually, and the sort of super-obvious advice that he didn't _really_ need to hear, but he still can't help breaking into a smile, anyway. Because when she says 'it's Karkat,' what she means is 'it's Karkat, who acts like a weird little wolverine most of the time but actually just marathoned five human romcoms _just last night_ and who is the most hopelessly romantic little motherfucker in either of our universes so you should probably sweep him right the fuck off his feet just to be safe.'  
  
"Okay," he says outloud. "Cool."  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Rose sighs. She finaly gets around to setting aside her book, and Karkat watches it go mournfully. One of his favourites, really. He wishes that they were talking about the book, instead. He wonders if she's gotten to the part where Highblood Ketyne and the mysterious limeblood have their interlude under the waxing light of the pink moon.  "The thing about this," Rose says, and he remembers how much he doesn't want to be having this fucking conversation all over again!, "is that it's stupid. There's really no good reason for you to be asking me. You know Dave as well as I do. _How_ long have you two been...?"  
  
There's that eyebrow again. That eyebrow can fuck right off. Karkat balls up his fists. "If you're not _fucking_ going to help, than at least --"  
  
"I'll help if you want, but this is _so_ unneccessary," Rose says, heaving another sigh. This one is purely for dramatic effect. "The thing about Dave is that he pretends to need nothing at all, and he actually needs more than the average person. Which you know. He thinks he's above needing attention, which is just demonstably idiotic, which you know. And he'll claim not to be sentimental and be lying, because he's made of chocolate and wafers, which you also know."  
  
Karkat's ears are burning and he knows she's right and he wants to see Dave touched and flustered and pleased and he can't say any of that, so he focuses on her metaphor. "Chocolate and _wafers_? What the _fuck_? You're making it sound like Dave is delicious and I should fucking _eat_ him for Valentines Day." Eyebrows have never climbed so fucking high, and Karkat turns on his heel and stalks out of the common room. "Wow! Sorry I even asked!"  
  
"I think I like Phrynen better than the mysterious limeblood," Rose calls after him, and he deserves a billlion imperial commendations for not turning around and telling her just how incredibly wrong she is.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


Karkat takes two hours to watch the film _Valentine's Day_. It's not one of his favourites because it basically feels like a seasonal, inferior retelling of _Love, Actually_ , which had superior emotional range and strangely compelling human cross-cultural dynamics. He does appreciate the straight forward title, however, and it gives him some ideas of how to proceed.  
  
The holiday more or less seems to be represented by traditional human displays of romance dialed up to maximum. Food, stuffed animals, flowers, and fire, all in excess of their normal amounts. And, he can admit, as he tries not to kick the uncooperative alchemiter, he can't help but be sort of brought in by the grand romantic gesture aspect of it. As far as he can tell, it's a day dedicated to actually acting out the last twenty minutes of a good romcom, which everyone knows are the _best_ twenty minutes, after everyone's worked through their insufferable (wonderful) piles of hoofbeast feces and need to really prove to each other that they're in it for the long haul.  
  
His thinkpan kind of stumbles over that last bit and he tries not to think too hard about the practical application of 'long haul' when applied to an actual god of time like Dave.The long haul was fucking _long_ , and the thought gave him a jolt that was somewhere between delight and maybe terror? Or maybe just wary delight. Or maybe just full on terror.  
  
_Who the almighty fetid_ fuck _could put up with me that long?_  
  
He decides that Rose would change her mind about Phrynen when it was revealed that he'd been part of the limeblood cleansings all along. Probably feel justifiably guilty about it, too. He's going to rub it in her face and really drive home the dark historical significance of the limeblood purge, and he's managed to alchemize yet another fucking cosmic loser that isn't anything even close to grand gesture territory. He mutters under his breath and starts over.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Dave just sits hunched over his sound shit.  
  
'Sweep him off his fucking feet,' yeah, sure. Sure, sounds great, phantom Kanaya, I'll get right fucking on that, and he stares down at his equipment and it's like there's a record scatch in his brain, over and over, just a needle skipping off some flaw in a marked up bullshit record, and that record is actually Dave actual Strider. He can think of only _one_ thing he's unironically good enough at that might actually impress Karkat but he keeps coming back to the fact that he only learned this arguably useful skill in the first place to impress someone who was never impressed by anything.  
  
Fuck that.  
  
He makes himself think about songs that he's sent Jade, instead, how much she liked him. Rose unable to keep from bobbing her head when he saw her listening to his stuff for the first time. That one she'd recorded some violin for, that was some good shit. No fucking way he was going to get her help with this, though, she'd never let it go, and never mind his ego and her Rose-ness, it would just be...  
  
Cheating?  
  
Not special.  
  
Fucking Jesus, there's something just so inherently fucking gay about the word 'special.' Everyone queue for the homo bus, and the clock is a-tickin. The arbitrary measurements of the time they were all killing out here are dragging their fat asses towards the meaningless February 15th, 2011 finish line and once they get over it then none of this would matter. Which he might just let happen, if not for Kanaya's human sarcasm and pesky knowledge of the whole affair and insatiable burning need to meddle.  
  
He stares down at his shit. He's seen Karkat nodding his head just a bit while he listens to premium fresh just-finished beats before, seconds before he claims that he doesn't like them. Drumming his clawed fingers on the table. Tapping his little feet. So if Dave sits down and makes something for him, _especially_ for him, there's no way he's going to just hate it, right?  
  
Or just not react. Set down the headphones, shrug. Disappear for a weekend and come back smelling like weed with half a day old pizza.  
  
Fuck, whatever, just make something and -- just make something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Karkat opens his crabtop, kind of hating what he's done and himself and the very concept of a day dedicated to grand romantic gestures altogether, he nearly jumps out of his skin at the sight of lurid red text awaiting him. Just sitting there. _He knows,_ followed by, _stop being a fucking nooksniffer, who cares if he knows_ , followed by, _and he doesn't know shit anyway, what the fuck is wrong with you_ , finished off by, _actually read his fucking message before you freak out you fucking wiggler!_  
  


turntechGodhead [TG] began pestering carcinoGeneticist [CG]

TG: yo

TG: you there

TG: man what the fuck

TG: where you at

TG: okay whatever asshole

TG: ive got something for you in my bedroom

TG: oh sorry

TG: in my respite block because trollz

TG: fuck yall trolls really hate economical language

TG: you realize that room takes one syllable and respite block takes three right

TG: your entire race could be saving hours of your lives

TG: this is the sort of insight that a knight of time can give you youre fucking welcome junior

TG: okay whatever i dont know where you are

TG: come to my room

TG: see yeah fuck the troll police im saying room my cultural sensitivity only extends so far

TG: ive got a fun surprise for you in here

TG: fuck that sounds sexier than i intend it to

TG: its cool tho we can probs do that too

TG: get over here

Karkat catches himself smiling and wipes it off his face. Stop smiling, this is a disaster, it doesn't matter if he's cute. (He's so cute, what the fuck.) He can't go to Dave's room where Dave has something for him (Rose's eyebrow raises in his mind, damn her) because Dave has to come _here_ where _he_ has something for _Dave_ , and it can't be moved. He's trying not to think about how Dave has something for him, and that it definitely has to do with Valentines Day, and his toes kind of curl a bit as he furrows his brow and puts his fingers to the keys.  
  


CG: THAT'S NOT GOING TO WORK. YOU HAVE TO COME HERE.

TG: shit there you are

TG: i was about to turn loose the rescue dogs

TG: help my boyfriend disappeared into the bowels of our space rock and youre my only hope fido

_Boyfriend_. He feels himself smiling again, twisting his lips against his will.  
  
  


CG: I DON'T KNOW WHAT WEIRD FUCKING AMBUSH YOU'VE GOT WAITING IN STORE FOR ME IN YOUR BEDRO

  
  
  
Backspace.  
  


CG: I DON'T KNOW WHAT WEIRD FUCKING AMBUSH YOU'VE GOT WAITING IN STORE FOR ME IN YOUR RESPITE BLOCK BUT I ACTUALLY HAVE SOMETHING SET UP HERE AND I CAN'T JUST MOVE IT.

TG: what why not

CG: BECAUSE IT'S FUCKING UNWIELDY IS WHY.

TG: geez karkat

TG: how do you know that my shit isnt unweildiest and here youre trying to make me haul ass all the way across this rock to save you from wielding

CG: OUR FUCKING ROOMS ARE RIGHT BY EACH OTHER YOU INCOMPREHENSIBLE STUTTERING NIMROD.

TG: haha you said room

TG: victory for humans everywhere and our slow destruction of your unique alien culture

CG: OH MY JESUS CHRIST IS YOUR SHIT MOBILE OR NOT?

TG: ehhhhhh

TG: its semimobile sure

CG: OKAY!

CG: GOOD!

CG: FINE!

CG: WAS THAT SO HARD? MINE ISN'T, SO GET OVER HERE AND WE'LL GET THIS UNDERWAY. 

 

 

 

 

Dave had set up a whole sound system, but really not only was that overkill, the thought of the abortion of romance he'd put together piping through some speakers around his room makes him feel a little ill. So it's not so hard to just pack up a computer and a splitter and two sets of good headphones and get moving over towards Karkat's room with just these. He's trying not to think about some display Karkat's set up that's apparently so extensive that it can't be moved. He's also turning the thought over and over in his mind, looking at it from all angles, finding new things about it that make his heart jump and his stomach flutter.  
  
Karkat's waiting with the door open, which doesn't give Dave the chance to get his shit together before he knocks, and he knows he's already flushed when he gets there and is grateful for his shades to hide what's going through his head when he steps in through the door.  
  
"Oh my fuck."  
  
He's going to drop his shit, so he hands it over to Karkat who just takes it without a word, which is nice, because he doesn't have the energy to deal with anything but just appreciating the horrible glory of what's stretched out before him. Karkat's room is just covered in flowers. Just flowers, everywhere. Which is nice, which is the sort of thing that can make anyone's heart quiver a bit because someone taking the time to get so many flowers together and set them up and make them look nice just for you -- nice feeling, right?  
  
Okay, right, but these flowers are made out of shitty jpeg artifacts. They're trashy and have some truly epic compression loss and one is actually glitching through a jpeg vase and just sort of leaning up against nothing. Some of them have Sweet Bro's gormless steakface leering out of them. There's rose petals on the bed, or maybe that's confetti? It's impossible to tell. The shittiness is just too strong.  
  
"Oh my fuck," Dave repeats, his voice low and pregnant with emotion and wonder. "Oh my fuck, this is so fucking horrifying, Karkat."  
  
"It's..." Karkat has a full body cringe and gags out: " _ironic_."  
  
It's personal. It's a grand romantic gesture in the most traditionally dumb fucking Valentines Day possible way translated into Strider. It's Karkat finding a piece of human culture and then adapting it. It's like a clown with #1 SON, but way better. At least a thousand times better. These asstastic flowers are making his heart hurt a bit and he has to walk over to Karkat's pile of shit that acts as a bed and slump down on it and take a second to just swallow a lump in his throat. He's aware that Karkat is standing beside him and so he clears his throat and tries to remember how to make mouth noises and manages to say, with admirable coolness, "Pretty dope."  
  
" _Wow_."  
  
Right. Dave reaches up. He pulls off his shades, flinching as he does so, and he meets Karkat's eyes. The red in the irises is really starting to come in. They match. "This is really fucking dope, Karkat," he says in a quiet murmur, and Karkat's eyes soften and he flushes pink.  
  
Dave pries the laptop out of Karkat's hands and hands him the headphones. "Put these on," he instructs. Karkat mutters angrily about how Dave _knows_ that he finds human headphones so uncomfortable because they don't fit the shape of his ears and couldn't Dave really give him earbuds for once and fuck all that musclebeast shit about sound quality being better. Dave tunes him out, which is a skill he's gotten really good at, and queues up the thing he's spent all afternoon working on. Nonstop.  
  
"Put the fucking things on," he insists, and Karkat glares but complies. Dave grabs the second pair. "Uh, right," he says, mouse hovering over 'play.' "It's a little long. Five thirty six. So I hope that's cool. And uh, this was gonna have lyrics, but I can't sing for shit, and they just sounded insulting when I tried to rap them, and I would rather punch myself in the dick than let any of the girls give it a go, _fuck_ that, so... yep. Instrumental, motherfucker. Which will probably strip all the actual meaning out of this garbage, now that I'm thinking about it, so --"  
  
"Just play the fucking song, Dave!"  
  
Dave sighs. Cringes. Hits play.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Five minutes and thirty six seconds later later, Karkat takes a breath that shakes a bit. He reaches up to brush at his face, and his fingers come away candy red. He sniffs. He feels kind of like a dumb wiggler, but Dave doesn't say anything as he turns to look at him.  
  
"Thanks," he says quietly, and Dave just kind of nods, but there's a little curve in his lips, and Karkat decides that there's a whole lot to recommend February 14th.  
  
He really, really wants to hear the fucking lyrics Dave wrote to this song but he manages somehow not to say that. He deserves another imperial comendation. He's racking them up, today.  
  
"I didn't even think you knew what Valentines Day was," Dave says.  
  
"Wow, that's incredibly stupid of you, Dave, considering we've watched like a hundred fucking human romcoms!" Karkat sighs. Admits, "I might have asked Rose." Dave snorts. Karkat snaps his head around and gives him an evil eye. " _What_?" he demands.  
  
"I might have asked Kanaya."  
  
"Oh." Yeah, okay, that was pretty funny. Karkat struggles furiously between amusement and irritation, imagining those flighty broads with their heads together, gossiping and laughing about their clueless male counterparts. He can't settle on either emotion, so he goes with a big sigh. He looks at Dave. He wanted to get candles, but it didn't seem worth the fire hazard. Who even knew how flammable shitty jpeg artifacts were? Besides, it was nice to actually see Dave's face. His eyes. Shit, his eyes. He scoots a little closer.  
  
Dave can't ever seem to decide whether to put some big smooth casanova grin on or fall into flustered flushing hysterics at this sort of juncture. Karkat has discovered that he really likes the hybrid chaos that happens on Dave's face. "Oh, hey." A Strider tongue-tied is pretty fucking delightful.  
  
"Rose said you were made of chocolate and wafers and I should eat you," Karkat says with a smirk, and Dave turns almost as red as his god teir pyjamas while Karkat slides a hand up his thigh. "I think she might be onto something there."  
  
Dave's breath hitches and his eyes go a little glazed when Karkat brushes against the hardness under pants, and Karkat pauses with his fingers there. They're both still wearing the headphones, and Dave is wielding the laptop one-handed to give Karkat better access to his crotch. He lets himself smile. There's no one else watching. "Hit play again?" he suggests. Dave hesitates and then does, and the music floods Karkat's head again. He closes his eyes, feeling it rush over him. Music from nothing, all for him. "See if I can make this happen in five thirty six," he says to no one in particular, but Dave grins as Karkat's slides onto his knees, raining shitty jpeg petals onto the floor, and the music in his ears goes straight to his heart.

**Author's Note:**

> i gave up on flawless pesterlog formatting ao3 can fuck me


End file.
